


under the sign of ruin

by roundthedecay



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Bad Vibes, Codependency, Dan Loves Herbert, Domestic, Doomed Relationship, Gothic Horror Elements, Jealousy, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:34:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25094674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roundthedecay/pseuds/roundthedecay
Summary: Between Peru and a bride, there's a house, a road trip and stitches, in and out of order. Herbert's attentions leave Dan as tender as his absences do, and there's little hope of untangling it all.A series of missing scenes from Bride of Re-Animator.
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Comments: 23
Kudos: 68





	under the sign of ruin

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this written for about a year, and just never got around to finishing it up and publishing it. It was written in response to my feelings about Dan's characterization in "Bride", which i orginally didnt like very much...This is a kind of rewrite, a kind of expansion, that tries to focus more closely on the things about the herbert/dan dynamic i like from the original movie, and even borrowing a bit from the original Lovecraft story. Warnings for some canon-typical gore, jealousy that is not handled well, and emotional manipulation
> 
> It's about time I let this one go into the wild....i hope you enjoy!

There's a series of bad choices that Dan has made to get to this point, this point being a belly full of stitches and a delayed flight from Lima back to the United States. Herbert West attracts bad decisions he thinks, Herbert who Dan watched gesticulate wildly at the airport ticket counter.

They've been here for six hours and he's tired - he's been tired for months now, and worries it's become his default state of being. His muscles ache a separate ache from the one on his stomach which instead stings: worrisome. It's where he has a long line of sutures, holding skin violently ripped apart via machete, with a pain that still echoes too vividly, too distinctly. At the very least, Spanish is still mostly incomprehensible to him and if he's not concentrating, the loud conversations around him are an easy background noise to block out.

When Herbert marches back to him, he has no good news to share.

"The flight was canceled. Most flights are being delayed but there's one in an hour to Miami. We can figure out a connecting flight there."

"And if we can't?"

Herbert waves him off, a usual occurrence, "We'll figure something out".

He guesses it's true, they usually do. When he stands to follow Herbert to the gate - smuggled re-agent and iguana parts and duffel bags at hand - its in too rough a movement that forces the re-tearing of skin, the pulling of a stitch. He hisses and Herbert's hand shoots out to hold him at the spot where red begins to blossom through his clothes. He winces at the sting but Herbert doesn't pull away.

"Bathroom," he instructs, "I'll wash it out."

Herbert pushes them through the crowd full of agitated travelers, into a single person bathroom, where he locks the door and begins stripping his shirt off. Peru's made them unquestionably intimate and Herbert navigates him with ease.

"Does it hurt?" Herbert asks, inspecting the area where his injury is raw and red before beginning to wash his hands, "It's wound dehiscence."

"It's fine," he lies, and Herbert puts on that face, that concentrated face like he's working now. He's never like this with other patients, Dan knows. Only cares enough about re-animation and for his assistant, though Dan thinks the latter is only about watching his investment. Dan moves to sit on the toilet seat to allow Herbert better access, Herbert falling to his knees to inspect Dan's re-opened wound more closely, all clinical as unpacks all their first aid supplies.

Herbert's attention is a fickle and cruel thing, though; he laughs as Dan squirms under the discomfort of disinfectant being poured into open flesh while the tense process of re-stitching begins.

"Don't be a baby, I can fix it," Herbert scolds but says it through an amused smile and all Dan thinks is _it's your fault I have these_. It's Herbert's fault he's in Peru, that Meg is dead and that their experiments are covert, illicit things. It's Herbert's fault for putting himself in danger when he's all Dan has left.

Dan already had a lot of blood on his hands, indirectly, but that was the first person he'd ever killed and it was for Herbert. Herbert who dragged him in and out of a warzone. Herbert who put in his stitches and Herbert who will take them out. Herbert who's washing his blood down a stained airport sink.

"You'll be fine, " Herbert says easy, "One more."

Dan grits his teeth at Herbert's next particularly rough movement, at the too-tight tug of thread against skin. A sharp pain and Dan gasps.

"Shh…" Herbert shushes him, rubbing his thigh up and down to soothe him.

The way one might soothe a wounded animal, Dan thinks. Herbert is methodical even in his comforts, but Dan will take it. Eventually, after what feels like forever of white-hot discomfort, Herbert finishes.

"Stand up, let's wash it again."

He does. But in the process finds himself grabbing at Herbert by his shoulder to hide his face in the crook of his neck. He feels suddenly overwhelmed by everything and nothing all at once.

Herbert maneuvers him closer to the sink, washes off the remaining blood with uncharacteristic gentleness while he letting Dan stay pressed against him, Dan taking in his skin and scent like its soothing water down his throat. He feels exposed under the bathroom fluorescents, an operating theatre, and claustrophobic in the thick, humid air that reeked distantly of urine. His life has been nothing but unpleasantness for the past year and Herbert is the cause and the respite from it all the same.

"Dan," he says, speaking close to his ear, "It's clean now. As clean as it's going to get at least."

He thinks that's his cue to move, to separate his nose from where it presses against Herbert's jugular, but he doesn't want to and Herbert doesn't push him away. Instead, he resumes an even petting of Dan's hair, longer now than he was used to keeping it and not nearly as clean as he would like.

"I'm tired," Dan admits and Herbert lifts his face up with his hands so that they're eye level, "Come now, you should be proud of all we've accomplished. We have been making innumerable strides forward."

He opens his mouth to retort but Herbert stops him, "And - we'll be home soon."

Where's home, Dan wonders, now that he's long moved on from their old place in Arkham. Wherever Herbert was, was home for now - a thought equally comforting in a Pavlovian familiarity and frightening for all the ways Herbert West was unpredictable, unstoppable and cruel.

Herbert untangles them from each other and Dan has to move to lean his weight against the sink. He thinks he must look absolutely miserable, downright pathetic about the separation because Herbert throws him this pitying look - all over-analyzing eyes and pursed lips.

"There, there, Danny," he says and it sounds sarcastic at first, but then Herbert leans in to give him a soft kiss on the cheek, stroking his hair back behind his ears and suddenly Dan doesn’t know what to think.

Like most things involving Herbert West, the development is thrilling and damning all the same. Dan's too vulnerable for this and he thinks, _you'll ruin me_ but Herbert pays him no mind.

Instead he instructs, "Put your shirt back on, we have a flight to catch."

* * *

Dan sleeps on and off on the seven-hour flight to Miami. The flight is packed, and Herbert lets him have the window seat. Every time he shoots back awake from turbulence or general discomfort, Herbert is wide awake, scribbling away in his notebook, rereading his own notes or sitting arms crossed, and held upright by his own tension.

"Go to sleep, you won't get anything done here," Dan tries at one point and Herbert ignores him until Dan dozes off again.

Dan steps out into Miami airport with a stiff neck and feeling grungy with the long travel. Miami's air feels just as humid and suffocating as Lima's did, and the airport employees are as little help. There's only so many options on the budget they have and there are no flights for them to take that night regardless.

"There's a flight to D.C. tomorrow that's cheaper. We could rent a car and drive up," Dan suggests.

"We're going to have to buy a car anyway. Might as well use the money we have saved for that," Herbert reasons.

 _We -_ Dan fixates on it. They've made all their decisions together thus far so why would this be any different? They had both sold everything before Peru, so this is a fresh start among all the ghosts they had abandoned in Arkham.

That night, at an obnoxiously colorful motel Dan brings it up, "We could elsewhere, you know. We don't have to go back to Arkham."

"We don't need to go elsewhere," Herbert says unbothered. His confidence is reckless, always, and it's going to ruin them one day.

At least more than it already has.

Dan could argue the point. "I call first shower," he says instead.

It's a good escape, luxurious privacy and the first proper shower he's had in days. It washes away the dirt and the dried blood and trauma of the past week, of the past year. It's good to be out of a war-zone. It's good to have a break from all the experiments. His muscles unwind under the warm spray and the mist is a soothing heat.

But even away from him all Dan can think about is Herbert, and their next steps. He thinks about how Herbert touches him and thinks about touching himself. It's a thought that doesn't seem as out there as it once might have and the desire of it sits in Dan like an obvious truth.He decides against it, regardless, since Herbert's waiting his turn, and steps out.

Herbert's watching TV, flipped to the local news and more relaxed than he's seen him all year. He walks out into the room in only a towel - there's nothing they haven't already seen of each other while sharing a tent, so it's too late to get shy now - but still, he's intensely aware of the appreciative one-over Herbert gives him, that lingers long over the stripe of stitches on his stomach.

"It's lucky they didn't get infected with all we've been through," Herbert comments as he gets up, walking over towards him. He reaches out, a feather-light touch to the wound that makes Dan immediately tense. It only seems to encourage Herbert to be rougher, to trace the knots of thread purposefully.

Dan holds him back by the arm, "It's still sensitive."

" _You're_ sensitive, Dan."

Dan takes Herbert's hand into his own then, interlocking their fingers to distract him and to touch and Herbert smiles at him like he understands. Dan is almost sure he doesn't.

They part again and so he goes to bed and falls asleep to the sound of Herbert's shower and the muffled noises on the other side of paper-thin walls. The nightmares he has are the typical ones, of gore and death. He dreams of hands around his neck that he can't tell are alive or dead. 

* * *

The flight to D.C. is easier than the one to Miami and they manage to buy a used car, cash upfront, a couple of miles out from the airport. It's far from pretty but sturdy and serves their purposes. They still don't know where they're going to live, their future as of now filled with more motels and open houses. And resumes, he assumes - though Herbert's convinced they can just get jobs at Miskatonic Medical with their connections. Still, it's difficult to take comfort in that when as of now, they're on an eight-hour drive and it's all up in the air.

It's getting cold up north and they're lucky there's no ice on the road yet, but there's a fog settled right above the ground, and Dan's fingers on the steering wheel tingle with the chill in the air.

"I'm thinking," Herbert starts, "Considering most of our funds will be going towards housing, that it would be wise to attempt to restock our supplies before Arkham…"

Dan can tell he isn't going to like where this is going, "Cut to it, West."

"Well," he says scanning the map he'd picked up at the last gas station, "There's a town coming up in a few miles. I say we stop for lunch, it's a Saturday…veterinarians are usually closed, we can borrow some things."

Dan scoffs, grabs at the steering wheel a little tighter, "Really Herbert? I'm surprised you're not suggesting we go straight to the town doctor and hold him at gunpoint."

"Don't be ridiculous, Dan," Herbert says, and when Dan looks over at him he's wearing a crooked smile, "There's always much less security at animal hospitals."

He sighs.

"What's the rush anyway," Dan tries, "If we get jobs at the hospital we'll have access to all the supplies we need."

"And who knows how long that'll be. Even a week is too long to waste!"

Dan knows there's no arguing with Herbert when it comes to these things and he wrestles with a heated frustration that's already giving way to inevitable resignation.

"It just seems so unnecessarily risky. I mean we just got back."

Herbert's shifting in his seat, "Everything is fresh now, our samples, our data. We can't lose momentum now."

Dan hates arguing while they drive. Herbert knows this.

"Okay," Dan concedes, "But lunch first."

Lunch is a homey diner in a small Massachusetts town that was probably picturesque on the right day; all the trees were orange-red signaling autumn but the sky was too gray to appreciate it and the ground, too wet and cold.

The eggs are dry but the cheap coffee helps, and the desperation with which Herbert flags down the waitress for a second cup allows a surge of affection to overtake Dan's general discontentment. It feels good to be back in his home state, it feels good to have Herbert sitting close to him despite it all.

So they rob a vet.

It's closed on the weekend and they pull up around the rear, the backdoor having been left seemingly unlocked. The town is small and the locals too trusting, they surmise. It's such a small trespass, considering everything they've already done, but Dan still feels distinctly guilty about it all the same. Inside there's a dog and two cats in cages and Dan worries the dog might begin barking but it's an old, scraggly thing that only looks up at them with vague interest.

While Herbert makes quick work of scavenging, looting supplies and syringes and instruments of all sorts, Dan fixates on a sickly black cat.

"Dan, can you check and see if -" Herbert starts and stops when he sees what's caught his attention.

It's barely discernible in the unlit room, and had Dan not looked closely he would have mistaken the poor thing for nothing but a shadow. When he approaches it, it looks up at him but it's untrusting and refuses to move from its corner. Dan finds he can't look away.

"It looks like Rufus," Dan says lamely by way of explanation. Herbert hovers awkwardly near him, clearly unsure of what to say. All the meanwhile Dan wants to ask, _did you kill him that night?_ Meg had been so sure of it and in retrospect, Dan doesn't know why he was so quick to always defend Herbert and take his side, no matter how ridiculous his excuses were.

Maybe Herbert did kill him, but what would it matter? One offense among hundreds and far from the most egregious one.

"I knew you were fond of it," Herbert says and in between the spaces of the words, Dan thinks he could trick himself into hearing an acknowledgment, an apology, a dismissal. Herbert takes him by the arm, firm, and pulls him away.

"We need more wound wash for your stitches," he says, tilting his head, instructing him to start looking.

* * *

When they finally arrive in Arkham, they settle into a long-term stay motel and pay the first week in cash. It's a deadline, Herbert doesn't want to waste too much time without a lab but still, a motel room is far more comfortable than camping and Dan finds he can't complain. Their schedules are different but Herbert keeps the lights low while he sleeps, and in the end the only difficulty is in occasional bathroom hogging.

They know each other so well at this point there's little awkwardness in cohabitation. Herbert will touch him by the elbow or the small of his back without much thought, to maneuver over the sink. When Herbert has a new idea, a new angle to break down he crawls onto Dan's bed to sit close to him, his notebook between them. It's nothing new, but Dan is hyper-aware of it - the domesticity of looking for a home and safe proximity makes Dan want to touch.

As if his feelings about the situation weren't complicated enough. It's pursuing a dead-end - they were arguing all the time in Peru and they'll argue again here. He's not thinking straight but when Herbert sits pressed against his leg, Dan lets his hand sit on Herbert's thigh.

Herbert tenses and then relaxes, leaning into him before continuing his train of thought. It causes a warmth at the bottom of his stomach and anxiety at the pit of his chest all the same. It's a slow development.

Finding a house moves just as slow. There's nothing in the neighborhood they used to live in and several houses shown to them by their real estate agent are discarded for a variety of reasons - on too busy a street, with too small a basement, or too open a front yard.

Their realtor is a perky brunette that takes all of their idiosyncrasies, in stride. She's pretty, Dan can acknowledge, and quick to familiarity. Herbert doesn't like her much, not that Herbert ever likes anyone, but he's getting desperate to get out of the motel. They have two days left paid when she hands them a final list of potentials.

One listing, near the bottom of the page, catches Herbert's eye right away.

"This address," Herbert asks, "This is by the old cemetery, correct?"

"Yes," she falters, "If I'm honest, I mostly just included it for good measure. We almost never show it."

"Why not?" Dan asks.

"It's been empty for twenty years. It's completely outdated…and if I can be frank, creepy. No one's wanted to buy it…."

Herbert's eyes meet Dan's and they're completely alit with curiosity and amusement.

"We'd like to see that one first then," he says, and the realtor, to her credit, stumbles only for a moment.

"Of course," she says, unable to hide the lingering confusion on her expression and looking to Dan as if he might be saner. All he can offer is a sympathetic shrug.

So she shows them house, and it fulfills if not surpasses whatever building expectation her brief description had offered. Dan thinks it's positively excessive; like an old gothic manor on the cover of an airport paperback. He knows by now that Herbert West was a man of hidden decadence and is not surprised to see him take in the distant, looming, entryway with unmasked glee. It was at least a block away from the rest of the houses of the neighborhood, obscured by overgrown trees and surrounded more by graves than living people. Fitting.

Once inside he gets a sense of what the realtor meant by 'outdated'; none of the furniture had been replaced or even touched for at least a couple of decades, all rotting antiques covered in a sheet of dust. Even the air itself felt somehow aged, made heavy with musk and oppressive with stagnation. It didn't seem to bother Herbert, who took in the house with open interest and a pleased excitement he rarely deemed worthy to display.

Herbert moves on ahead from the realtor to find the basement and it is then that he truly cannot keep the smile off his face. The basement is spacious, far more so than their previous one, with solid brick walls and extra rooms and silence.

"The cemetery's grave keepers used to live here before all the graves filled up. I was told this used to be some kind of morgue," she says by way of explaining some of the odd fixtures and even Dan sighs at that one. It's too perfect for their purposes. Herbert looks rapidly between him and the realtor, eyes not seeking approval necessarily but agreement. Dan nods.

"How soon can we move in?"

* * *

Herbert somehow managed to talk them into an expedited move-in, and in two days they have transferred all their things from the motel and into their new lair. There's not much to move unsurprisingly and Dan feels pinches of distress at how little they can personalize the space. It's a cutting reminder that Herbert probably sees this as a workplace before a home where they live together, something he probably doesn't see anything wrong with.

There's no use getting attached in this way to Herbert West, no matter how attractive it all seemed to him in lonely moments tinted by touch starvation. And he was lonely often - it was constant low-burning grief to be back in Arkham with nothing the same as it once was, with his student life behind him and Meg long gone and Dean Halsey tortured and dead by his compliance.

Dan thinks about resting his hand on Herbert's thigh again, he thinks about Herbert kissing him on the cheek and about kissing him back. He's been mostly ignored these first few days of moving, Herbert mostly preoccupied with setting everything up in their new lab and starting experiments back up as soon as possible. The second day, they blow up into an argument about grave-robbing, about the pros and cons of running trials on such old corpses - there's nothing to be gained from it, no lives to be saved but Dan's suspicions have long been confirmed about Herbert's tendency toward flat out morbidity - something Dan doesn't know what do about other than let the knowledge acquire bitterness on his tongue.

The next day Herbert avoids the topic whether because he has truly given up on the plight or because he's decided he doesn't truly need Dan's permission when he could just as well ask forgiveness after the inevitable offense. Not that Herbert has ever been able to admit failure or mistakes, and God knows they had too many of those.

There's little time to think about it when they resume their work-life at Miskatonic Medical as shift doctors. They're together most of the first day. He doesn't know most of the new staff but there are enough people who remember him and offer year-late condolences and whispers behind his back. He's sure they'll be front and center of the rumor mill for at least the first week, the survivors of the infamous massacre: back from their tour as volunteer medics, as roommates of all things.

Herbert doesn't seem to notice or rather, doesn't care. Instead, focused on learning the names of the new morgue workers and their shift times, no doubt already mapping out how best to secure access to a new subject.

It officially marks a return to their vocation, in more than one way.

"Dan," Herbert says when they're back home, "We've long established there is no physical location of the 'will of the brain', yes? It stands to reason, after Hill, that our experiments would be just as beneficial if we began working on individual parts -"

"Beneficial to who? We're trying to save people, not parts," Dan says as he stirs a stew on the stove.

"Any deeper understanding of the human body is beneficial to society and regardless I'm asking you as a scientist, not a doctor."

Dan serves them a bowl each, not the most flavorful thing he's ever cooked but it's perfectly warm and needed in their old house, which seems to retain chill like a dead thing.

"Eat," Dan says before Herbert can continue. Herbert starts eating mechanically, without looking up from his work.

"I'm feeling confident about a couple of changes to our re-agent," Herbert says and Dan thinks _our_ re-agent. How simultaneously frightening and intoxicating.

"You're going to try the amniotic fluid?" Dan asks.

Nothing lights up Herbert's expression like his work. A manic, pulled smile takes root.

"I'm going to call a couple of exotic pet sellers about Iguanas tomorrow morning - Cuzco iguanas. It worked well before and I think with the proper facilities -"

"We can be more exacting."

"Yes," Herbert says excitedly, "I've already found protein samples of myosin from the research wing of the hospital."

Silence - these are moments of truth, in a sense, where Dan becomes an active participant rather than a bystander. He internally debates it always, even though he's long been damned.

"And tropomyosin?" he adds.

Herbert smirks at him and nods, "I was thinking of several trials to try varying the quantity."

Dan thinks, "When we tried it in Peru, I thought the amount we used might have been making the solution less stable."

Herbert smiles at him with pride, "My thoughts exactly."

Herbert takes another mouthful of soup before putting one of the pages of his notes between them. Dinner flies over specifics and debate and reminding Herbert to keep eating.

It feels successful in a way that Dan recognizes as addictive, why else would he stick around? Herbert's genius often feels like it has its own magnetic field and being able to keep up with it and receiving those pleased smiles in turn feels like nothing else. He feels particularly proud of being able to get Herbert to eat a full dinner too, a rarity for a man who treated sleep and food as optional, unfortunate inclinations of the human body.

Meg with all her jokes of housebreaking him, would have never believed how deep his capacity for domesticity could run when it came to Herbert. It strikes him then that he never treated her as well as he should have, never ever put her first in this way - a thought broken by Herbert standing up and clearing their plates, and squeezing his shoulder as he walks by.

Herbert rinses the bowls off and while he's drying his hands, Dan walks up behind him and in a moment it all overwhelms him: his neediness and insecurities and persisting guilt. He wraps his arms around Herbert's waist, head resting on his shoulder. Herbert stills and then pushes back into him. When he turns around it all happens in inseparable succession.

Dan surges forward or maybe Herbert does, and their lips meet in a gasp. Dan wraps his arms around him, tight like a lifeline, like it might be their solution even though there's no way it is.

It isn't, but it feels so good.

It's deep for a first kiss and desperate with no apparent trigger and Herbert's hands end up wrapped around his arms. When they pull apart it's for lack of breath and Herbert looks up at him with a small smile.

"I want you," Dan says but it's with no confidence and quite sad, the words tumbling out like he's begging. He keeps him in his arms tighter.

Herbert lets out a quiet, breathy laugh, "Kiss me."

So Dan does, he kisses Herbert with no willpower to hide his desperation and against all his better judgment.

* * *

Surprisingly little changes other than more touching, more kisses. Herbert says so little about it that sometimes it seems like nothing ever happened at all and Dan doesn't know whether to keep pushing. There are times where he's convinced he's imagined it, until Herbert rubs circles at his waist while they're in the lab or stops him in the kitchen for a kiss.

It feels like Herbert's stuck in his head, somehow even more than before. It makes their fights feel more intense, more personal, and Dan had snapped at him when he found body parts being kept in the fridge downstairs. They had kept their distance all night after that, leaving Dan in bed anxious and unable to sleep. It's around three in the morning after he might have slept a handful of minutes here and there, when he hears a loud crash and bang coming from the basement that jolts him to his feet. It's a strange déjà vu, marked by a sharper more distinct fear than the first time - he knew what he was getting into now and it made it all the worse.

It's worse because he hears Herbert's panicked screams and it feels like ice expanding in his chest. He breaks into a run, stumbling his way down the stairs and calling out his name. 

"It's fine," Herbert calls back out to him but the scene Dan arrives to witness does nothing to calm his nerves - it is one of broken glass and blood and a dismembered arm, luckily not Herbert's - lying twitching on the ground and stabbed through the palm. Herbert's laying across the floor, panting from exertion and suddenly it's like in Peru, where seeing Herbert in danger overrides any qualms he has about the man, any anger he has about where to place the blame.

So Dan falls into place at his side, "What happened!?"

"Too high a dose on the re-agent, it attacked me," Herbert says, speaking too fast, "I took care of it."

"Like hell you took care of it," Dan exclaims, surveying the carnage, "I told you this was a bad idea."

He puts an arm around Herbert, with the intention to both comfort and assist when the man coughs and Dan can see up close where bruises are beginning to flower around his neck.

"It tried to strangle you!?"

Herbert seems barely bothered by it; in fact, Dan can practically see the gears in his heading turning.

"I mean, we saw it with Hill, but I think even then we severely underestimated the amount of residual consciousness…of _instinct_ that exists outside the brain -"

"Its instinct was to strangle you, Herbert," Dan says, angry and pleading. Suddenly he's at Miskatonic again and he can feel where the damage had compressed Meg’s throat beyond repair. Suddenly there's gunshots and yelling, Herbert won't move out of the way fast enough and -

"I'll try with a lower dosage next time," Herbert says and Dan’s frustration translates to a tightening grip around Herbert’s arms.

"Herbert! It's morbid and it's dangerous -"

It's Herbert's turn to anger and he pushes Dan away. "Science is not morbid, Dan," he says but winces at his sudden movement.

Dan doesn't know what to do. They always end up here. Silence hangs heavy and uncomfortable and Dan feels mostly sad.

"Let's just go to bed, Herbert. I'm tired," Dans says, realizing too late how that might come across suggestively, but Herbert doesn't notice or isn't bothered by it, still preoccupied with his failed experiment and surely planning on how best to try again. But for tonight at least, he concedes to Dan's solid hand across his back. Dan leads Herbert to the bathroom upstairs to get a closer look at his neck and to wash off the lingering touch of re-animated dead flesh.

"You're lucky it's only bruises," he says, wrestling the horrible dread the sight gives him as he undoes Herbert's tie and the buttons of his shirt.

Herbert hums in acknowledgment and shifts against where he leans against the sink. Dan is topless too, having jumped out of bed not bothering to put on his robe in the panic, and he's only thinking of it because they’ve kissed now and touched. The thought that he could have lost him too makes it easy to feel romantic and longing about it all.

He appreciates the sight of Herbert and Herbert appreciates him in return, eyes skimming over his body and landing once again on the healed stitches he still hasn't gotten around to removing.

"We should remove your sutures," Herbert says, "They're healed."

"It can wait till tomorrow," Dan says but Herbert shakes his head, "It'll scar more. Let me do it now."

What's another scar? What's ten more minutes of lost sleep? Herbert has a kind of anxious energy he needs to burn so Dan lets him. Herbert washes his hands off and comes back with surgical scissors and smelling of disinfectant. Herbert leads Dan back to Dan's room and Dan's bed, where he pushes him to lay down.

"Don't fall asleep," Herbert says, as if there was any way Dan could fall asleep now, adrenaline still making its rounds through his body and anticipation a bile in his throat. Removing stitches doesn't hurt but Herbert is standing over him, ready to work on his latest subject. How many unlucky people had found themselves with this exact view, going through these exact motions only to find nothing but the cruelty of man who brings only incoherence and suffering? And yet when Herbert touches him, despite this gruesome understanding, Dan finds himself tensing for reasons other than the anticipation of pain.

Dan flushes with it but Herbert has gone concentrated and clinical. He works the small surgical scissors to catch onto the thread easy, releasing the tension of skin held together by synthetic astriction, pulling the material to move through healed skin. Dan doesn’t mean to but he gasps, and Herbert looks up at him with a single raised eyebrow.

Herbert sits up for a second, letting a hand skim over the scarred skin, leaving goosebumps in his wake. He traces around the crescent shape, a ghost of touch and tease. Dan for all his experience with gore and medicine alike feels once again squeamish, like a student.

What's more intimate than flesh? More trusting than letting Herbert move in and out of his skin? Herbert goes back to work and the last pieces of thread get pulled out, tugging against his abdomen.

"All done," Herbert says, passing the back of his knuckles against the raised skin that's been left behind. There's no way it won't scar, a part of him permanently marked by the choices he has made.

As if he needs any help remembering - there's no universe where he'll be able to forget. He thinks even if all of Herbert's crimes rose once more to drag him away from Dan, forever, his ghost would still find a way to enthrall him. Their separation, whenever God wills it, will be violent. A conjoined pair cannot be forced apart without trauma. This knowledge sits, an ominous and heavy burden, constantly at the back of his mind.

It's a disturbing thought, but not so much so that it stops him from yearning for the man above him. Herbert always looks at him so deliberately, full of knowing awareness and Dan wishes it was as easy for him to do the same back.

"Do you know what you do to me?" Dan says, though he thinks he already knows the answer to that question. What he really wants to know is _do I make you feel this way too? Or is it just part of the process to you. To keep me happy -_

Herbert silences Dan's internal woes with a kiss, a kiss he takes his time with and that pushes him into the mattress. When Herbert climbs onto the bed and settles in his lap, there's no way for Dan to hide his interest. He groans as he lifts his hips to grind against the other man, a rush of pleasure blinding him when he feels that Herbert is hard against him, too.

Herbert moves back, and begins a trail of kisses down Dan's chest and all the way to his abdomen where he begins to mouth against his fresh scar. Dan's accompanying gasp isn't of pain, but shock, and his hands shoot down grab at Herbert's hair for some sort of purchase, lest he sink and spiral.

It feels more intimate than a lot of things Dan has done in bed.

It's achingly tender, kissing the wound as if he were kissing Dan with his hands on his hip holding him in place. He's there for a handful of moments before he moves again, pressing his face against the growing tent in Dan's sweatpants, palming at his length through the fabric.

When Herbert pulls him into his mouth, Dan's mind is blissfully blank.

* * *

Sex feels to be the natural progression of their relationship so unsurprisingly, their routine hardly changes. Dan thinks there's very little than can pull Herbert out of his habit and work, short of death, and even then -

Dan logically didn't expect much to change but a part of him still hoped and did so without his consent. In a week's time, Dan initiates all their kisses, and Herbert only crawls into his bed once, arriving at dawn after a night shift at the hospital. It's those moments in between that Dan clings to, the side of Herbert that seems so potentially different from the calculating one that frightens him. But Herbert did not know when to stop pushing, and kept demanding things that would be his moral undoing and Dan didn't know if their moments of tenderness in between were enough to stave off catastrophe.

It's hard not to think about it when he sees the way Herbert looks at patients, seeing them as potential fuel for their ghastly research rather than people. He sees it flash in his eyes more and more often, every time they ask him to move cadavers Dan can see how he plots. Herbert's been going through bodies too quick these days.

Herbert has a way of thinking that's mechanistic, where bodies are machines to be oiled, deconstructed and fixed. Dan thinks it rubs off on him sometimes, when he loses the will to scold Herbert about being too crass to a patient, too flippant to someone on their deathbed. It's a cross to bear and he always inwardly dreads the day Herbert will turn that logic and merciless gaze his way.

It would be what he deserves, he thinks, but that does not mean it does not frighten him. One night, Herbert confesses to him his latest plot - the conjoining of separate body parts. He said he's tried with their previous re-agent but it wasn't enough - it needs the new formula. They argue - of course they argue - but Dan concedes the possible use for it in the medical sense, for transplants and amputations.

But that night, his dreams are full of fear - of disjointed creations and death. The nightmares stave off any chance of restful sleep, and the next time he and Herbert argue about right and wrong, it ends with Herbet’s punishing cold shoulder.

* * *

There's a patient at the hospital named Gloria, who's equal parts beautiful and heart-breaking and Dan finds himself immediately taken with her. Her smiles at him are fragile things on the cusp of shattering, but genuine and Dan feels it like a personal reward when he's able to coax one out of her.

She's dying and never has any visitors. Dan tries to keep her company when he can. One day his workload is particularly slow, so he takes his time running her tests, makes small talk and brushing the hair out of her eyes when she can't sit up. He leaves feeling pleased about having seen her and stops by the breakroom for an afternoon coffee. The room is sparsely populated but he can still overhear conversations about the weather and the weekend game which he listens to with vague interest until Herbert strides in and demands his attention.

He thinks nothing of it until he notices the sour look on Herbert's face and the stiffness of his posture as he approaches Dan by the water cooler.

"Danny, a word please."

Dan's eyebrows furrow out of concern, that something has happened to Herbert, that he's gotten caught doing something he wasn't supposed to so he follows him out of the room with no argument. He's shocked when they're finally alone and Herbert turns around looking spiteful and accusatory - "What do you think you're doing?"

"Me?" he recoils, confused, "What are you talking about?"

"The way you're acting with that patient is extremely unprofessional."

It's so unexpected Dan has to take a step back, needing the space to allow himself to catch up.

"You mean Gloria?" he says, "Have you been watching -" he stops himself, doesn't want to know what he already suspected.

"Unprofessional," Dan gasps, "As if stealing body parts is."

Herbert gets angry at that, "The things I do, I do for our work, Dan! Meanwhile, you're letting yourself get distracted with every blonde floozy that makes eyes at you. "

"It's not like that Herbert," he says, feeling simultaneous offense and guilt. After all, he and Herbert were inhabiting a strange gray space that Herbert had pointedly avoided naming and Dan had been too nervous to ask about. Herbert could be so cold during the in-betweens, or perhaps Dan was too clingy. Was he flirting with Gloria? He thinks he didn’t mean to but the guilt found a way to settle in his chest anyway.

"She's terminal, Dan," Herbert says, pulling him out of his thoughts, "I'm thinking about our work and how we shouldn't be distracting ourselves."

"I know she's terminal - she's the people we’re supposed to be helping!"

Herbert absolutely sneers, "You won't help her by fucking her then."

Dan feels like he's been slapped, finds himself legitimately hurt by the implication, and finds the whole situation pushes salt into open wounds he didn't know he had. He can never tell what Herbert's thinking; he doesn't know what Herbert wants from him other than a pair of still hands over the operating table. And then, quite suddenly and obviously when it does, how obtusely blind he's been.

"You're jealous," Dan says. It isn't a question.

Herbert, always so animated, can't keep off his face the split second of hurt, a sadness that contorts his face and gives way too quickly to anger. It's all the confirmation Dan needs and suddenly he feels as if he's committed some atrocious trespass. He leans in, wants to bargain for forgiveness through his touch.

"Herbert, I'm -"

Before the words finish their task, a group of nurses turn a corner into his apology - speaking loudly and one of them, shooting the tension between them a suspicious glance.

Herbert is so tense. Holding himself rigid and looking anywhere but Dan.

"We're on the clock," Herbert says before dismissing their conversation and leaving Dan alone with a distinct feeling of helplessness.

The rest of the shift drags by in a slow crawl. All he can think about is Herbert, imagining imaginary conversations that they should have, should have had, earlier. It seems so obvious in retrospect. He had thought it once, observing the constant hostility Herbert had towards his relationship with Meg - something he had mistakenly concluded was related exclusively to the productivity of their work. But, considering everything that's happened since then, it seems far from that clear cut.

It was difficult to comprehend anyone so unscrupulous - with so much potential for dark deeds as Herbert - could reciprocate his feelings, the sticky ones that never stay put in his head, that wander and ache. The possibility of it feels forbidden, not an option. Perhaps in another life he would instead have spared more surprise to the revelation that he could love another man so much. Dan of two years ago, would have bent under the enormity of that, of his own earth-shattering devotion so different and yet akin to what he thought he had felt for Meg.

He doesn’t think about those details when he feels for Herbert- in that way Herbert frees him. Herbert frees him and binds him all the same. Loving Herbert was a complex affair.

Herbert isn't waiting for him when he gets off from his shift. He's angry, Dan supposes. Feels bad about it even though there's a part of him that feels vindicated, justified. But arriving to the empty living room still leaves him chasing shadows. He's so susceptible to longing when he's back in Herbert's radius and he finds himself leaving his things scattered around with little thought, making his way down to the basement as if pulled along by an undeniable force.

Herbert is deep in work vials, hypos and glasses, each scattered out and marked with haphazard labels peeling off the surfaces. Herbert doesn’t acknowledge his presence, something that on an average day may be nothing unusual but that today Dan regards with a desperation that would make it easy to summon tears.

"Herbert," he starts, but Herbert holds up a finger to shush him before adding a careful drop of liquid into one of the cups. It fizzes, and Dan can't bring himself to guess what it might be through his anxiety. He gives Herbert a moment to finish up, to jot down some reactions before trying again.

"Herbert, we need to talk."

"About what, Dan?" Herbert replies, purposefully obtuse.

"You know what," Dan says.

Herbert, huffs, shuffles in his seat, "I think I made myself purposefully clear, did I not? I don’t retract my concerns if that’s what you're seeking of me. "

"It's not."

"Then what is it?"

It's incredibly difficult for Dan to force the words to take shape, the moment tempered by a deep-seated fear of rejection and irreversible missteps.

"I never know how you feel about me. I never know what you want from me," he says finally. It's not exactly what he wants to say, but it's a fumbling step forward.

Herbert stops and assesses him then and Dan can see so clearly how the gears behind his eyes begin to shift. He's evaluating the situation, trying to figure out what Dan wants to hear, and what will make him tick. It's cold and calculating and crudely scientific until it isn't. Until Herbert's brows furrow in angry offense, "Do you really not know? I want what I've always wanted."

Herbert turns his back on him, then, returning to his work to signal the conversation was no longer worthy of his attention. Dan fumes; Herbert always does this, acts like Dan's the sentimental fool. He spends a night angry in a cold bed. 

* * *

Passing time palliates the symptoms of his anger but does nothing to heal the source of it. So he nurses it, the way one would a sore wound. They keep their distance the entire week, Herbert asking him no further opinion on their re-agent, and only calling him down when he needs the spare muscle. He hates that even in his anger and frustration, he misses Herbert. Longing knows nothing to do but ache and it's a horrible state of affairs he thinks - to yearn for someone as much as you resent them.

Their distance is felt more keenly living in the same house; when his absence can be noted at dinner and Dan can hear through the walls the sound of Herbert showering, moving around his room, and plotting around the lab below.

There's one day Dan arrives from his night shift while it's still dark to find all the lights still on. As he traces Herbert's steps, going through the house to shut the lights off one by one, he debates going downstairs to check up on the man who is surely not in bed and who will surely find his concern unwelcomed.

At the door, the memory of a dead hand wrapping against a slim throat presents himself to him and there his decision is made. Unlikely, but motivating. Probably, Herbert will simply scold him for worrying him but he comforts himself with the single possibility that he might get Herbert to rest, perhaps even rest with him. That would be worth incurring any risk.

When he makes his way down the stairs, what he finds is Herbert's head down on his lab desk. All sorts of papers and sticky notes laid out before him while he snoozed away in his suit and tie.

Herbert, like most, looks much more peaceful while he sleeps; all his intensity smoothes out and eases and Dan wants to kiss him. It's easier to idealize when they're not arguing and Dan's only concern is getting them to bed. Still, he quashes the instinct to run his fingers through Herbert's hair and settles for waking him by the shoulder. He shoots up immediately, eyes wide but bleary and looking around in confusion.

He squints as he adjusts to the lights, reaching out a hand to settle his glasses back into place.

"What time is it," he asks, voice hoarse from disuse.

"Almost six in the morning. I just got back from the hospital," Dan explains, "You're lucky you don't have to go into work today. You'd be dead on your feet."

"This _is_ work," Herbert says.

Dan gives him a look, "You know what I mean."

A pause and a moment and Dan gathers his strength, "Let's go to bed."

He hopes it doesn’t sound like begging. He wonders what Herbert is debating in these moments, why he looks at him with such doubt - like Dan is the one that doesn't make sense.

"I still have things to get done," Herbert says but it's weak enough Dan can tell it's performative.

"I can help you after we've slept," he replies and it seems to be the right answer because Herbert relaxes and concedes. He leads Herbert back to his room where they undress quietly and slip under the sheets without any further words. It's easier in the darkness of closed blinds to not think about it - to simply reach out and touch. Herbert had slipped on one of his old t-shirts, a sight which filled him with possessiveness and which he feels warm under his fingertips.

Herbert's skin solid and soft breaks down a dam within him and suddenly he can't hold any of it back. He pulls them closer together, wrapping his arms around him to hold him tight where he can breathe in his scent. Herbert smells so familiar, and it makes him let out a sigh of relief he hadn't realized he was holding in.

Herbert melts into him, easy, and hand slipping in between them to stroke at Dan's waist just to savor it. Herbert is the one that blindly seeks out Dan's mouth - a kiss to bring them closer, a kiss to hold on, that melts in their shared intensity. Eyes shut and clinging onto him, is how Dan falls into a dreamless sleep.

It only lasts for what must be a few hours before Herbert jostles in discomfort, and pulls him out of sleep. It's light enough that he can see well that Herbert is still asleep but his breathing is coming in hard, twitching, and distressed. Dan's had enough nightmares this year to recognize it in another person with ease.

"Herbert," he says, gently shaking him awake; he barely makes contact with skin and bones before Herbert shoots awake, standing up straight and back, moving away from Dan like he's been burned, as if Dan had been reaching out to him with horrific intention. Eyes wide, with a vulnerable kind of fear that Dan hadn't seen in a long time. So often he convinced himself Herbert had completely shed himself of that kind of vulnerability or had at the very least forwent the humility to ever acknowledge it's existence.

"It's just me," Dan explains, holding his hands up and empty, "It's just me."

Herbert relaxes with that - minimally, but undeniably. It's put away quickly, shelved as Herbert remembers himself. He straightens and tenses, keeping a distance between them as he wills his breathing to even out.

"Are you okay?" Dan asks.

"Of course," Herbert says, a little too loud and a little too rushed to be believable.

"I'm sorry to wake you," Herbert says, almost professional, before beginning to rustle the sheets to move out of bed. Dan stops him, grabs him by the wrist.

"It's fine," he says emphatically, hoping he doesn't have to beg. Herbert looks at him, one part deer in headlights, another part calculating risk. He settles back in. Lays down next to Dan, an attempt made to make it look like a causal decision despite how much it was not.

When they settle back in, Dan finds he can't stop himself from talking.

"Was it a nightmare?"

He feels more than he sees Herbert tense next to him.

"It's not a big deal you know. I would be more shocked if you didn’t have any considering what we do."

He says it for comfort and context, but realizes once the words have already left his mouth that they’re not exactly true. He never expects these things from Herbert. Perhaps he dehumanizes him too much in his head.

"It's nothing. I don't need to be coddled."

"As if you would ever let me coddle you. I'm always going to worry about you Herbert, even if you don’t care about yourself and if you don't care about me back. I can't help it."

He blames the confession that tumbles out on a number of factors that make his mind fuzzy and tongue loose - but regardless of cause, the words make Herbert sit up once more, looking down at Dan.

"You think I don't care about you?" Herbert asks and it sounds shocked, borderline upset. Dan flounders, just as lost.

"I don’t know Herbert, you have a weird way of showing it."

Herbert huffs, "What do you want me to do? Buy a ring? Exchange vows over milkshakes? Don't be ridiculous. "

"It feels like you're using me half the time," Dan blurts out and it feels like ripping open a wound barely allowed to scab, and that burns at contact with moving air. Herbert himself seems equally distraught but Dan can't tell how atypical an anger it is.

"Do you think I would have let just anyone into my life, into my work? The most important thing I have - my reagent - I share with you. I can see now that means nothing."

"No, that's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean, Dan? We both know what's at stake."

Herbert gets up then and leaves Dan alone again with no hope of falling back asleep.

* * *

Herbert doesn't stop ever, for anything or anyone. Dan already knows this - but the intense fury with which Herbert attends to his latest experiments makes Dan think it's his way of coping with whatever it is that he's feeling. Dan copes too by working, and sleeping, trying to keep busy anyway he can. In a way, Herbert's words feel like more shattering a revelation than the re-agent ever was.

Still, Dan can't square away the Herbert who manipulates as easy as he breathes with the Herbert who so staunchly has declared him his life partner, and who offers him the most treasured of all his possessions - his work. They've always been one and the same, he realizes, and it was futility to attempt to create a distinction.

The following day at the hospital, he hears whispers of one of the security guards: body parts, stolen from the morgue. The guards laugh it off, and don't seem to take it seriously because well, who would do such a thing? Dan can barely concentrate on his shift then and finds himself apologizing to more than one patient for spacing out.

His relationship with Herbert is unsustainable in more ways than one. Doomed since its inception. He ponders it a long night. Thinks there can only be so much of this back and forth before choices had to be made. He hurts too much, and at the end of the day he's a man motivated by fear. 

Two nights later, Herbert brings him down to the lab again to discuss the perfected re-agent. The excitement of scientific discovery out-does any lingering tension for Herbert, and melts away any awkwardness they had stewed in previously. But Dan has the words heavy in his mouth the entire time, even as Herbert presents to him their newly acquired Cuzco iguana, and goes through all the steps and quantities they had discussed so many times before.

When Herbert presents the final product to Dan, he still calls it their re-agent.

"Pure potentiality. The primordial ooze from which life originates," Herbert says.

When Herbert lifts a sheet to reveal severed fingers, an eyeball with the optic nerve still gory and attached, it sends a final, horrified chill through his body. A cold, righteous anger to meet Herbert's morbid giddiness.

There has to be a line drawn somewhere.

"I have to move out," he says.

It stops Herbert's hands from their atrocities as he pauses, looks up at Dan with nothing but confusion as his lips slip into a pout.

"What?"

"I'm moving out," Dan reiterates, trying to sound more firm. Like he believes distance between them is possible, like it might be their solution.

"Dan, you can't turn back now…this, this is the key to creating life!"

"Throwing body parts together isn't helping anyone. It's not -"

Dan tries to step away from the table, but Herbert reaches over and grabs him by the hand, "Don't you see what this is? We can create life…"

Herbert lets go and drops a small amount of re-agent on the amalgamation of disjointed parts, and Dan watches with horror as it starts to move and function with some sort of unnatural instinct, with a consciousness it shouldn’t have.

Something snaps inside Dan then, all of that anger and all of that woe. Trespasses never feel more personal than when it's someone you love, and Dan's love was already a gnawing thing on its own.

Dan starts, "Is this what it's all about? What all our great work has led to?"

Their overlapping arguing begins full-force and inevitable.

"What are you insinuating?" Herbert says, venomous.

"This is your madness, I can't be a part of it -" Dan says, "I'm out."

When his back is turned Herbert says with considerable cruelty, "I didn’t see you rejecting my work when Meg was lying there dead."

It’s painful in its pointedness - Herbert has always had a way and picking at exactly what wounds still burn the most.

"Don't," he chokes out.

The atmosphere shifts between them then, into a different territory where the argument isn't just about their work, isn't about science or ethics.

"Danny," Herbert breathes out, "What was it you loved about Meg?"

It makes him turn around then, suddenly caught off guard. When he looks at Herbert, the man moves away, walks to the back of the room to where they keep the fridge. When he comes back it's with a piece of meat wrapped in plastic. Herbert offers it to him arms, extended out like a priceless gift.

"Meg's heart," Herbert says and the moment grants Dan a clarity that had long eluded him.

"We can create a new life" Herbert continues, pressing the organ into Dan's hands, "starting with Meg's heart."

There, with Herbert's hands around his, and the symbolic dead flesh cold in his palms, things begin to slot into place for Dan. This is what Herbert thinks he wants - crime scene evidence that might return to him a dead love. Herbert thinks that he wants Meg still, after everything. After evenings of pining, of letting things slip and letting all his principles weather under the enormity of their work. All for the sake of Herbert.

He shakes his head, to Herbert's confusion, and thinks they've misunderstood each other too long.

"That's not what I want," he says, but doesn't let Herbert go, "Everything I've done, I've done for you."

You don't have to give me this, he thinks. He had buried Meg long ago; the patch of dirt where she laid was undisturbed. Dan has the retrospect to know his role in her death and is keenly aware of all the moments where when it came down to it, he chose Herbert. In a thousand little ways, every day, for years.

He chooses Herbert in a way that leaves him terribly vulnerable, in a way that invited sabotage. It's why he has to leave, even if all their time apart only left him wanting. Their time together, leaves him wanting too. 

Dan puts Meg's heart down and watches a parallel understanding cross Herbert's eyes, feels that maybe for the first time they might be on the same page.

"Then stay," Herbert says, "Stay for me."

Herbert has Dan then, hook, line, and sinker, and Dan realizes there was no way he'd be able to leave. Herbert's hands are still stained with a stranger's blood and his arms wrap around his neck like the most loving of nooses.

"I need you, Danny," Herbert says, "You can't leave now."

He can't leave now, he's in too deep. He leans down and kisses Herbert with all the feeling of a beginning and end. Dan never feels the validation of all his constant burning ardor more than when they're skin to skin. It silences the part of him that's prone to doubt and spells of loneliness. He's a man of flesh at the end of the day, and perhaps its no wonder that this is where it's led him - to cadavers and to a man who he loves to the point of grief.

Dan needs Herbert, and he can't leave now.

Herbert's hands keep him there close, and the kiss is deep enough to fall into. When they pull apart, it's only for one reason: that Dan has to get the words out. He needs to hear Herbert say them back.

"Herbert, I -"

The doorbell ringing interrupts them forcibly, a grating sound that rings throughout the hollows of their basement and forces them apart.

"Damn it!" Dan curses, but they both move concurrently to go deal with the problem at hand.

The detective arrives at their door like a harbinger of the end - a sign to jump ship because all the sins they had wrought had left a trail. Dan resists the urge to run and instead, holds on tighter, and he begins to lie and misdirect. It's not the first time they've been interrogated, and Dan will tell them whatever they need to hear at this point to keep them safe. No matter how poorly he takes to it, unsure and tense in a way so different from Herbert. 

Herbert always lies with ease, lies until the detective leaves still upset and suspicious. He'll be back, Dan can feel it in his gut. 

Dan has become accustomed to ignoring the way omens tend to pile up around them. He ignores them and instead, rides the tension of almost being caught - of this trepidacious life they've built together already beginning to unravel - by fucking Herbert deep into the mattress. Dan fucks him so hard the bed creaks, and Herbert lets out this kind of gasp he's never heard before, and that makes him so hard his rhythm stutters and he groans.

He comes holding Herbert's hand, and with Herbert's legs wrapped around him in a vice. Herbert follows shortly afterward, when Dan crowds on top of him, stroking and kissing him through his orgasm. They lie there spent, Herbert allowing himself to simply be held; one hand petting Dan's hair absent-mindedly.

It's more blissful than it has any right to be, and far better than either of them deserve considering the horror they've caused. It's there that Dan can bring himself to say it.

"I love you," he says in the dark, Herbert on his arm.

Herbert's petting of his hair stills, but only for a moment, before continuing, and Dan can feel the way he forces himself to relax. Herbert looks at him straight on, like this is a challenge that he has risen to the occasion of.

"I love you, too," Herbert says, and it's all Dan's ever needed to hear. He accepts it with tenderness, but he would be lying if he said he believed it wholeheartedly. There's a rational part of his brain that persists through all this, that knows Herbert well enough to be sure that it will never be that simple, that even now he's itching to get back on track with their work.

Herbert's hands begin to rake through his hair a little more roughly, before grabbing a fistful that he uses to pull Dan into another searing kiss.

"Danny," he whispers against his lips, "We're destined for greatness, you know. We're going to change everything."

Dan gasps a 'yes' and keeps kissing him, even if he doesn't believe it. It's easy to call upon that feeling from when he first met Herbert, the man who convinced him he might conquer Death itself. It will always compel him. It will always sway him.

In between kissing Herbert breathes, "You'll help me, right, Danny? I need you."

He's in too deep. There's nothing he can say but yes.


End file.
